


The Outcry of the Heart

by childrenofthesun



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), Bittersweet Ending, Historical Event: Great Fire of London, I continue to be a slut for star metaphors, M/M, Non-specified Genitalia, Smut, let's get poetical up in this motherfucker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 07:13:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21231857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/childrenofthesun/pseuds/childrenofthesun
Summary: The year is 1666. A terrible fire has torn through the medieval city of London over the past three days, hot on the heels of a devastating bout of the plague. Both Heaven and Hell have claimed the tragedy has worked to further their cause. Many people have lost everything, and the streets that remain seethe with violence, lynchings rampant as they look for someone to blame.Exhausted by the misery and pain seeping into the city's very bones, Crowley and Aziraphale give in to their feelings and do something they both swore they never would.





	The Outcry of the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Another prompt from the kinkmeme, original prompt can be found here: https://good-omens-kink.dreamwidth.org/616.html?thread=998504#cmt998504

The official death toll for what would later be called the Great Fire of London would only be eight, but Aziraphale and Crowley would both know it had been so many more. Entire families were trapped in their homes while the intensity of the inferno reduced their very bones to ash. Foreigners were lynched in the streets as people searched for someone to blame. The poorest and most downtrodden parts of society were caught in the blaze, with no one left behind after to report or even notice their absence. For a city so recently devastated by plague, it was just one heartbreaking misery piled on top of another, like straw breaking a camel's back. Every person they came across had the same haunted, hollowed-out look in their eyes, a bleak absence of hope in the face of such consistent adversity.

Crowley and Aziraphale worked tirelessly to help control the blaze, to rescue people from its clutches. Tirelessly, because they didn't need sleep the way humans did; they were still exhausted by it all, the kind of exhaustion that went beyond a simple need for sleep, reaching a point where they just wanted it all to _stop_.

But their hands were tied - Aziraphale, because Heaven had taken the view that this was a cleansing fire and any miracles expended to counter it would be severely frowned upon, and Crowley, because Hell had declared the fire one of theirs, and would do terrible things to him if they found out he'd gotten in the way of it. They were both risking so much already, just expending the strength of their physical bodies as they worked side by side to do what they could to ease the pain of people who had lost everything.

Aziraphale knew that he wasn't supposed to mourn the death of humans. It was merely a transitory phase, with the bad ones descending to Hell to receive their just punishment, and the good ones rising up to Heaven for their eternal reward. But being in the thick of it as he was made it impossible to deal in such abstracts. All he knew was that he could feel the city crying out in pain as her children were destroyed.

Ash settled over them as they worked day and night, setting up fire breaks, evacuating homes as the inferno encroached, trying to pacify the angry crowds gathering in the streets, putting out blazes where they could. The ash was thick enough that the original colour of their clothes was entirely obfuscated, their hair grey with it. Never before had they felt so little like an angel and a demon, and so much more like the humans they spent most of their time living among.

After days of raging devastation, the fires smouldered down into a few sullen pockets, so small and in areas already so heavily burnt that the risk of them spreading any further was negligible.

It seemed a particularly feeble form of mercy.

Their eyes met, the colour of them stark against the grime coating their faces. Their expressions mirrored each other's devastation, a silent acknowledgement that the ash covering them, covering great swathes of the city, were the burnt remains of some of its inhabitants, their homes, their livelihoods, the entirety of their existence being slowly swept away by the wind.

Crowley sidled closer, knuckles brushing against Aziraphale's, tangling their fingers just a little, and Aziraphale leant into him like he'd collapse without the support. He was too drained to care if anyone saw them. The demon propped the angel up without complaint, slowly leading him over the London Bridge, over the sluggish, ash-blackened flow of the Thames, to the residence he'd taken up in Southwark. They were both silent the entire way, even when Crowley expended a small miracle to unlock his front door. His knees threatened to buckle at the effort, but he ignored it and led them both inside.

He dredged up what little reserve of power he had left to lift the ash from their clothes and hair and skin, sending it curling out the window on a gentle breeze. It was like lifting a death shroud, making them shudder with a relief they weren't quite ready to let themselves feel.

Later, neither of them would remember who kissed who first. Only that they'd both needed the contact, the reminder that there was still good to be found in the world, that there was some small measure of solace and comfort they could take in each other's presence. They shed their clothes the human way, piece by piece, limbs caught in a desperate fumble, too drained to miracle themselves free. Crowley clutched at Aziraphale's shoulders like otherwise he'd float away to join the ash coating the city. It was less that Aziraphale shoved him up against the wall and more that Crowley pushed himself back against it and dragged Aziraphale along with him, wanting to pretend there was some modicum of stability to be found there.

They wound up falling onto the bed together, already naked, hands roaming across forbidden expanses of skin. For a few hours, at least, they could ignore the fact that they were meant to be enemies; that they were an angel and a demon, as star-crossed as it was possible to be.

Aziraphale's mouth wandered hungrily along Crowley's neck and shoulders, decorating him like the constellations the demon had placed in the sky long ago. Crowley's skin tasted of smoke, and the angel couldn't tell if it was from the fires still smouldering sullenly outside, or just his inherently demonic nature. It didn't stop him from trying to taste more, mouth rising back up to meet the demon's, filled with a burning need to consume and be consumed in return.

_I love you_, they didn't whisper in each other's ears. Speaking felt like it would break the spell, stop all of this from feeling like a dream they could wake up from without repercussions. It didn't matter. The mutual desire they could feel wrapping them up in its embrace, so much deeper than anything that could be excused as being purely physical, said it for them.

They moved as one, their bodies and souls entwined to such a perfect degree that they were indistinguishable from one another. Crowley saw the glitter of countless stars exploding across his vision, sensation crashing through him like a meteor strike; Aziraphale saw a single sun, bursting bright against the back of his eyelids and filling him with its warm, all-encompassing glow.

For this one bittersweet evening, they weren't an angel and a demon - they were simply two people, sharing their love without words, holding onto each other tight as they tried desperately not to shake apart. Crowley's name tingled on Aziraphale's lips, begging to be spoken, but he held his tongue. Instead, he kissed away the crystalline tears scattered across Crowley's closed lashes before they could fall, gathering the demon's thin, trembling body to his chest, close enough for them both to feel their extraneous hearts beating perfectly in sync. Crowley clung to him with an equal, fierce determination, and not for the first time, Aziraphale marvelled at how bafflingly _good_ he was. How clever he was, to have convinced Hell itself that he was their best field operative by doing little more than moderately inconveniencing the humans around him. How he baulked so much at committing the sort of atrocities that should have come naturally to a demon, how all of the worst things he'd taken credit for had been perpetrated by humans without any demonic influence.

By all rights, Crowley should have been a monster, difficult to like and impossible to love. Instead, Aziraphale found more to admire in his demonic companion than most of the angels he knew back in Heaven. He should have been scrutinising the demon's every action for indicators of evil, clues to prove that his was all a grand temptation, but he didn't, because he knew he wouldn't find any. It ran contrary to everything he'd ever been taught about demons - but then, everything he'd learnt about Crowley flew directly in the face of those teachings. Rather than trying to convince himself that Crowley must have had some ulterior motive in taking him to bed, he had wrapped the demon up in the most intimate of embraces, feeling so safe in his arms that, for the first time in his long life, he found the gentle allure of sleep calling out for him to close his eyes.

Aziraphale obediently succumbed, drifting off to the steady rhythm of the demon's breath thrumming against his skin.

\---------------

Aziraphale woke with a hollowness in his chest.

It took him a moment to realise that this wasn't a normal part of waking up, that it was his body remembering what had transpired the previous night before his mind could catch up. And then, the memory of it tore through him like the fire that had just raged through London.

Crowley, gently tangling their fingers together, leading the angel away from the desolation of the inner walls of the city. Crowley, clinging to him like Aziraphale could offer him salvation. Crowley, his essence so beautifully, perfectly entwined with Aziraphale's own that neither of them could quite tell what belonged to whom anymore. Both of them, knowing that the answer didn't matter, because they both belonged to each other anyway.

It had been the single most rapturous, transcendent experience in Aziraphale's entire existence.

He had never been so terrified.

He could feel slender fingers gently stroking over his scalp. The touch was so achingly familiar, like it was an action that had been repeated for him a thousand times over. The tenderness of it resonated with love, promised to stand with him against anyone that would try to keep them divided. To defend and protect him at all costs, knowing that he himself would be willing to pay the same price.

So much of him ached to simply lie there and bask in the calming motion, let it soothe away the fear washing through him, let himself be loved. The remaining part of him baulked at the very concept, tension crawling up his spine.

It could never be like that. Not with Crowley. They were on opposite sides of a war of the grandest scale. To court each other would be to court utter destruction. He couldn't deny that he wanted Crowley, with an intensity that threatened to overwhelm him - that_ had _overwhelmed him the night before - but the consequences that would befall them both if they were discovered stayed his hand. He couldn't bring himself to be the reason Crowley came to harm. Hell would tear Crowley to pieces for daring to love an angel, and Aziraphale would never forgive himself.

He swallowed down his fear and forced himself to look up at the demon's face.

Crowley was staring straight up as he ran his fingers softly through Aziraphale's curls, tears streaking silently down over his temples. Aziraphale knew instinctively that the demon wasn't crying because of what they'd witnessed over the days prior. That he'd already come to the same conclusion that Aziraphale had, and had no idea what to do with himself in the wake of his revelation.

But he wasn't saying anything, and one of them needed to.

Aziraphale's voice cracked on the first try. "Crowley… this can't happen again."

No response.

"It's far too dangerous."

The demon continued to stare at the ceiling.

"If Hell ever found out, they would make you suffer for it," Aziraphale implored, desperate for any sort of acknowledgement.

Crowley stayed silent, still stroking the angel's hair. Aziraphale forced himself to pull away from the touch, his facsimile of a heart sinking as he realised that the demon likely wasn't placing much value on himself in this situation.

"…If _Heaven_ ever found out, they would make me Fall," he begged, and Crowley finally let out a small, hiccupping sob, closing his eyes.

Still, he didn't speak.

"Crowley, I..." Aziraphale choked, throat clogged with words that were too close to treason to ever be uttered this side of Armageddon. _I love you. I'm sorry. You deserve so much more than to be my mistake. You don't know how desperately I wish things could be different, that I could give you all the kindness I have to offer. _

He couldn't say any of it. He knew if he did, Crowley would open his arms to him again, and Aziraphale would embrace his own downfall gladly.

So, instead, he slowly slipped from the bed, gathering his rumpled clothes from the floor and dressed. Crowley kept his eyes shut, still as a statue, not even pretending to breathe. He suddenly seemed so fragile, so brittle, that if Aziraphale were to touch him now, he would shatter irreparably.

"Crowley," he whispered, "Please say something."

The demon squeezed his eyes shut a little tighter and gave his head the most minute of shakes.

He didn't open them again until long after Aziraphale was gone.


End file.
